


Ascend

by decidueye



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Celeste AU, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 11:34:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16039664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decidueye/pseuds/decidueye
Summary: Koutarou decides to climb a mountain on his eighteenth birthday. He climbs alone, and forgets what he has left behind.





	Ascend

**Author's Note:**

> This was not the Celeste AU I intended to write, but it is the Celeste AU I wrote, and I'm okay with that. I aggressively needed to remind Bokuto how much he is loved on this fine September 20th.
> 
> Thanks to Maelle and my very own Bokuto to whom I am engaged for the beta.

Climbing Celeste Mountain for his eighteenth birthday had seemed like a perfect way to mark the occasion from his home in Tokyo -but now, with two days left to reach the summit and only having reached the first rest-point, Koutarou is having second thoughts. His heels have calloused, the strain on his thighs greater than anything he has experienced during volleyball practice, and he has already slipped twice - the second time almost to his death, a stray, supernatural gust of wind blowing him bodily to the edge of an abandoned tower. 

The city took something from him. Koutarou isn’t sure what, and he has checked his backpack half a dozen times since he realised that something is missing. Somewhere between the old cinema and the skyline, when the gondola had stopped and squealed along its rusty wires, Koutarou had held his breath until he passed out. When his eyes opened, the world had shifted, and something had been taken from him. Now, he clings to the straps of his backpack like a lifeline, terrified that Celeste will claim something else for its own.

Most visitors to the mountain turn back after exploring the Forsaken City, unwilling to go further than people had once tried to settle. It makes sense - the city is a testament to the mountain’s challenges, buildings crushed by falling rocks and once vibrant colours faded by the elements. Nothing can survive for long here. Why would you want to try to go further than those who had dreamed to and failed?

Koutarou thinks about it for a moment. He can still see the roof of the groundskeeper’s hut at the base of the mountain; if he strains his ears, he can still hear her laughing at him. She said he was foolish to try, and he’s beginning to think that she was right. Turning, he regards the winding path he needs to follow in the morning, disappearing up a slope marred by fallen trees and crumbling rock. He can’t even see the top anymore, only clouds.

Koutarou can’t turn back, though. Not tonight, anyway. A weight settles on his shoulders, squaring them, and he gets ready to spend the night.

The campfire takes three tries to get going, and he regards the carved wooden stools around him with a glum loneliness. It would have been more fun to come here with friends, Koutarou thinks. Most things would be more fun with friends; Koutarou wishes he had some.

There’s a tug at the back of his mind that makes his head ache, as if someone is shouting into his ears, and he covers them with his hands, hoping that blocking out the wind will ease the pain. Shards of glass from a blown out window tumble over one another, racing each other in their escape to the foot of the mountain. In the hollows of his palms, Koutarou hears someone laugh - a ghost from the city, remembering a life of prosperity.

Koutarou shakes himself. His imagination is far too wild to be out here alone with nothing to do. He will have to eat and sleep, and if he is lucky he won’t dream. The hut hasn’t been used for years, it looks like - months more likely, because Koutarou knows that people come at least this far in the summer - and the wooden panels do little to keep the chill out, but Koutarou makes himself comfortable enough in his sleeping bag, pulling the hood tightly around him. Before he closes his eyes, he hears the softest flutter of feathers, and orange lights glimmer in the fast approaching darkness like fireflies, whispering a croaking call that might resemble his name.

By morning there is no one watching him, and the mountain feels less imposing in the golden light of dawn, though he is sure that it’s a trick. He finds a first aid kit, freshly stocked in an otherwise empty cupboard, and uses it to pad the torn flesh of his soles. He laces his boots up so tightly they feel like a second skin, stretches for five minutes, and then sets off again. 

*

Celeste gives him gifts. He finds berries on the vines he grasps to pull himself up the steeper cliff faces, and though a voice - his mother? No, a boy - yells at him not to eat them if he doesn’t know what they are, he does anyway. They taste sweeter than anything he has ever eaten before. His strength is restored by the time he reaches the next crest, and he is astonished to find another building, in far more disrepair than the Forsaken City but with more elegance, even in its ramshackled state. It looms high above him, foundations creaking as if ready to fall, but there doesn’t seem to be a way around, and so he presses forward.

The hotel, as he discovers it is, is occupied by a lonely old man: a hollow creature whose isolate heart reaches out to Koutarou. He relates in more ways than he would care to admit, and when Mr. Oshiro presses him to stay he does not promise to, as he has somewhere to be, but he lingers to help him clean. There’s more than two men can ever hope to accomplish - particularly when Mr. Oshiro just stands there, muttering accusations at himself as Koutarou moves around him with piles of books - but Koutarou presses on. He is reminded of someone; a vivid picture of astonished rage on a usually calm face as he surveys Koutarou’s own room. His friend would have a fit if they could see this space, Koutarou thinks, and then corrects himself. He doesn’t have any friends; he must be thinking of his sister, or, worse yet, falling victim to the fantasy that Mr. Oshiro has entered, talking to guests who might not have visited for centuries, if at all.

Mr. Oshiro scares Koutarou, and after an hour of help he realises that he is wasting his time, and has less than a day and a half to reach the summit. He tries to leave, but Mr. Oshiro grabs his arm, twisting it painfully. His eyes are red, now. His mouth is larger than Koutarou remembers it.

“You have to help me,” Mr. Oshiro whispers. He could be growling or crying; pleading or ordering. “Neither of us can do this on our own.”

“I  _ have  _ to!” Koutarou yells, pulling his arm away, and Mr. Oshiro’s broken expression mirrors his own. “I’m sorry you’re alone, and I’m sorry I am too. But I have to leave.”

The hotel turns hostile, moth-eaten tapestries that once seemed sad now cascading above Koutarou as if to trap him. He runs, higher and higher, because he has to keep climbing, even if it is through Mr. Oshiro’s trap. He pleads with Mr. Oshiro; with Celeste; with the dusty, familiar portraits of climbers gone before him. A single grey feather falls from the ceiling of the master suite - there is a crack there, the shattered glass of an attic window, and Koutarou pays no mind to the scratches on his skin as he pulls himself through it.

Through the hotel he has climbed almost 70 metres. The Forsaken City is nothing but a couple of skyscrapers far, far below him, and he is level with clouds that look thick enough to step on, the haze of condensation making them glimmer with silver. He sees the source of the feather - an owl with small, golden eyes, its brow creased into a V shape as it regards him.

“Thank you,” Koutarou calls, but his words are drowned out by the wind that pushes him up the ridge, his pants tearing when they catch on a rock. Koutarou struggles to find his balance, still propelled by the wind, and the owl spreads its wings and flies above him and out of sight.

Every step Koutarou takes is a fight against the elements - the wind threatens to send him into the sky, and he worries that if he lifts his leg for too long he will be shot out and away from the mountain, and no one will find his body. Flags - god knows who set them up here - indicate the wind strength, but they are blown so much they only point upwards, straining against the chains that hold them to their poles.

A bird shrieks. Something soft grazes Koutarou’s side, and he whips his head around in time to see a feathered, tawny coloured body, wings spread wide to carry the momentum of the wind. The bird shoots upwards with no effort at all, and barely within the reach of Koutarou’s eyesight it glides forwards, behind the face of the mountain, to safety. The wind is roaring around him, and Koutarou can no longer think. He is alone, with no harness and no one save the old groundskeeper at the foot of the mountain to know that he is here. 

A bird shrieks. Koutarou falls backwards with his arms spread, and Celeste’s winds catch him.

*

It is a good thing that Koutarou has no one to tell his stories to. He is sure that no one would believe him, but there is no way that the Temple he arrives at next was built by human hands. Its entrance is almost hidden, strange symbols carved around an unfamiliar crevasse that leads into the dark. Koutarou means to pass over it - it must lead down, not up, after all, and he can always visit on his descent - but night is approaching and the winds are only getting stronger, so he is forced in by the solid walls that promise protection.

Or so he had thought. He almost stumbles down the steps which have been carved into the rocks, too narrow and close together to have been created with his height in mind, and when the momentum of a slip pushes him forwards it is glass, not rock, that greets him.

Koutarou has only been in a hall of mirrors once, at a fairground when he was a young boy, abandoned by his sister as a prank. He remembers it vividly - his own frightened reflection staring back at him from every angle, the wobble of his lip mocking him as he did his best not to cry. Here, it is the same, except for one, crucial difference: he cannot find his reflection.

Koutarou spreads his palm across the mirror in front of him, and even when he squints he can’t see fingers that meet his own, nor can he see  _ through _ the glass, as he might a window. In the mirror to his right, something moves, but when he spins he sees nothing, not even himself.

He is lucky in one way, though. When he finds the corridor amongst all the glass, it leads to stairs  _ upwards _ , and he sees that he can climb through the night after all, if he can find his way through the maze. The walls are fitted with lights that don’t seem to require any wires, and the stones on the floor glow a dim, comforting blue. Koutarou takes to kicking them, watching them bounce off empty mirrors and scatter through clear pathways. It’s slow, but it works - until he runs out of stone.

He has climbed so high that his thighs burn from lack of oxygen and overexertion, and he is too frightened to sleep, but too tired to go on. The noise of stones he kicked an hour ago is still with him, but when he yells out in frustration there is no answer from the walls - his echo, like his reflection, has abandoned him.

His lip wobbles, and he almost wishes that he could see it in the mirror, if only to be angry at himself for crying. He never should have tried to do this alone; he can never do anything alone, even if he is forced to be.

_ It’s alone or not at all _ , he reminds himself, and the tears that were threatening really do spill now, over his cheeks and onto the floor, reflected by the mirrors as soon as they leave his eyes. He inhales sharply, ready to sob, but a distant screech stops him. Was it a bird, or a cry for help?

Koutarou wipes his eyes and presses onwards.

*

When Koutarou meets his reflection, it is not in the mirror temple, but outside of it. Celeste is teasing him now, and it is using his own shape to do it, a twisted version of his own laugh coming from his reflection that looks equally, if not more, solid than himself. Koutarou can see the summit behind him - still far away, but tangible, and he thinks that maybe he can do this after all.

“Leave me alone,” he tells Celeste, “I’m going to defeat you.”

“Defeat me?” Celeste asks him. Its smile looks garish; its body is beaten and bruised, every bit as affected by the mountain as he has been. “I  _ am _ you, Bocchan.”

He flinches. It’s an old nickname; a reminder that he is too spoiled, too demanding to make friends. Celeste laughs again, and Koutarou looks closer, and closer, and then he realises that it is right - it is not the mountain at all, but a piece of himself.

“Give up,” the piece tells him, snarling. “You can’t make it, and you shouldn’t try. What does it prove? Nothing.”

“Why are you so  _ mean _ ?” Koutarou asks, and the piece of him laughs again, but when he tries to take a step forward it leers at him, vicious and bitter.

“[I’M] [PROTECTING] [YOU],” it screams, voice static and overwhelming, and when the piece of him stomps its foot the mountain opens up beneath them both, and Koutarou falls.

*

Koutarou is at the bottom of the mountain; he is below the bottom of the mountain. In just a few hours, he will be eighteen, and he is further away from his goal than he has ever been. The fall has taken everything from him - though the ground is soft, plush grass and Koutarou is unhurt, he can no longer breathe, the air stolen from his lungs as he plunged through the centre of the mountain, past the hotel, past the city, past the groundskeeper’s hut and down into the overgrowth of an unknown land. Koutarou is beyond rock bottom, and now he will never reach the summit.

The piece of him is gone now. Koutarou wonders if it has gone to the summit without him, but then he feels it inside himself, a heavy sense of hopelessness in his gut, twisting painfully as it groans inside him  _ [I WAS RIGHT I WAS RIGHT I WAS RIGHT]. _ Koutarou hangs his head. He doesn’t know if he can even get back to the base of the mountain anymore; he will die alone, because he had something to prove that he doesn’t even remember.

At least it is beautiful here. The grass is a verdant, healthy green, daisies springing up around where Koutarou has landed, moss and strange coloured mushrooms clinging to the roots of ancient trees. The branches rustle, teeming with birds of all shapes and sizes, and one of them makes itself known to Koutarou, floating down from its perch to land on the grass in front of him.

Its eyes are black. Dimly, Koutarou recalls that this owl should not be out during daylight; it is too bright for it to see, but maybe it is sick. He reaches out to the owl and it nips him, more gently than an owl ever should be able to, but the pain startles Koutarou and he begins to cry.

“I’m sorry,” he sobs to the owl. “I just didn’t want to be alone.”

The owl takes two steps towards him, treading carefully on its legs as if it is unused to them. It blinks slowly, feathers ruffled, and utters a soft, clicking sound. The owl stares, and through his tears Koutarou stares back. It’s eyes are sad, heavy lidded - and familiar. He knows this owl.

_ [I WAS RIGHT] _ , the piece of him screams from his gut.

_ You are wrong _ , the owl says, and Koutarou’s fist curls as he looks up. There is nothing above him but trees, towering and enormous, but Celeste has always been full of magic, and Koutarou wants to try again.

He climbs, and the owl goes with him, flying from branch to branch and guiding his feet. Twigs snap beneath him but somehow he doesn’t fall, the air cushioning his boots and allowing him to spring further. He gets company: another owl joins him, and another, of different shapes and sizes, with different eye colours, and Koutarou doesn’t stop to think about how they should not be together, because he knows that it doesn’t matter - they are anyway. He sees the owl that guided him up through the wind shafts.t soars higher, and Koutarou feels himself taken with it as if in a dream.

He has further to climb than he ever has; more to do than he has ever managed to do in his lifetime, but he knows he can do it. His blisters burn and harden into calluses but he can barely feel them, the pain drowned out by determination and adrenaline and  _ support _ , a feeling all at once familiar and painfully distant. He has forgotten, but he will remember; he will reach the summit and he will remember if he can only get  _ higher _ …

Koutarou bursts through the clouds, feathers blinding his vision. He reaches out, grabbing them with his fist - white with darkened flecks; dull brown; mottled grey. The quills scratch at his arms, and then they are gone, and Koutarou reaches the summit. His friends are waiting for him; a rush of air passes through him and all at once he is himself again, and he knows - he has never been alone.

_ Celeste stands before them, large and daunting as Koutarou rests his back against the hood of the car. Akaashi is tying Koutarou’s shoelaces, muttering something about how he should be able to do this for himself, now, at almost eighteen years old. _

_ “I can do it,” Koutarou protests, straightening up to look down at them. “You just won’t let me.” _

_ At this, Akaashi smiles, small and secret, because they haven’t noticed Koutarou looking at them, and Koutarou files it away as a precious memory, something he doesn’t ever want to forget. They don’t reply, but grasp Koutarou’s hand to pull themself up, and their fingers are long, and warm, and familiar. _

_ “Why do you want to climb this stupid mountain for your birthday, anyway?” Konoha grumbles, kicking the dirt as he climbs out of the van. He’s the last out, and Komi kicks him in the shin for complaining. “Don’t we exercise enough for you?” _

_ “It’s a right of passage,” Koutarou tells him firmly. “An adventure! Besides, it’ll be easy as long as I have all of you with me.” _

The nine of them sit together at the summit. The wind rushes through their circle but Koutarou is surrounded in warmth, the jackets of his friends draped over him as they insist that he take them, he’s had the worst of the cold, after all. Komi takes out his first aid kit - his supplies half raided already - and treats the scratches on Koutarou’s arms. Yukie has made a cake, squashed in the bottom of her bag and half eaten on the journey up. He begins to cry, and then Akaashi is at his side, turning his face until they’re nose to nose, and then they kiss him.

Koutarou’s memories are still blurry, and  _ being loved _ hasn’t quite nested itself in his heart yet, resting awkwardly in his throat. He doesn’t think that Akaashi has ever kissed him before, because he is sure that even Celeste wouldn’t have been able to take that memory from him. It doesn’t matter, though, because it feels right, and his team grins around him.

“I thought I was alone,” Koutarou says, voice hoarse when Akaashi pulls away. Sarukui laughs, and Konoha claps him, hard, on the shoulder.

“We’ve been with you the whole time, you dumbass,” he says. “We’re always going to be with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday bokuto! find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/raindryad) and [tumblr](http://deciduice.tumblr.com).


End file.
